Exploring the Ever-Changing Seashore Using Geoinformatics Technology

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The improvements in the new version of the manuscript are noticeable.  Nevertheless, there are still missing some details before publication. Please, find them below organized by section:

 

AFFILIATIONS

Line 4: Please, replace ‘ Kafoor Nijamir⁴’ by ‘Kafoor Nijamir ¹’.

Line 5: Please, remove number 4 because when authors have the same affiliation, they have the same number.

 

ABSTRACT

Lines 22-25: As it was requested in the first round it is recommended to rewrite this sentence. 

 

INTRODUCTION

Lines 47: Please, replace ‘extraction’ by ‘extracting’.

Line 57: Please, replace ‘Tsunami’ by ‘tsunami’.

Lines 65-66: ‘where in this area documented 7.81 ha erosion and -0.23 annual growth rate for the past four decades’. Please, consider rewriting this sentence.

 

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Line 92: Please, replace ‘the heights of the wave’ by ‘the wave heights’.

Line 102: It is necessary to indicate when the port was built.

Line 103: ‘the erosion and accretion were normal’. It is recommended to indicate a rate because what value is considered normal.

Line 106: It is necessary to indicate when offshore breakwaters were built. It is recommended to add the length of breakwaters and if some maintenance operations have been performed since construction (e.g., increase the length or the width). These factors have an effect in the coastal dynamics.

Line 108: ‘beach ugly’. What do you want to express with ‘ugly beach’? It is recommended to look for a more suitable word than ugly.

Lines 82-123: There are some information mentioned both subsection 2.1 and subsection 2.2. Please, take into account that all the information about wave should be in the same paragraph, all information about breakwaters should be in the same paragraph and so on…

Furthermore, subsection entitled 2.2. Geographic and Geologic Framework describes the study area. Therefore, this subsection might be included in a section entitled 2. Study area (Study area might be a section instead a subsection in Material and Methods). This section might have two subsections:  2.1 Oceanographic and Climate Framework and  2.2 Geographic and Geologic Framework.

Line 112: The term coastline is not suitable here because coastline is a line by definition. The authors must be referring to coastal zone. Please, correct this.

Line 118: Please, replace ‘Sea’ by ‘sea’.

Line 123: ‘Tale and other vegetation cover were abundant along the coast’. It is recommended to be more precise (e.g., area covered by vegetation).

Line 126: It is suggested to change the name tof this subsection '2.3. Data Reception' by '3. Material and methods'.

Line 148: ‘estimate shoreline changes’. It is necessary to indicate how shoreline changes are estimated (i.e. measuring the distance between lines trough cross-shore transects). It is also necessary to add information about the space between cross-shore transects (e.g., cross-shore transects spaced 10 m) and the tool used to measure distance.

 

RESULTS

Line 168: Please, replace ‘in the Northwards of the harbor’ by ‘northwards of the harbor’ or ‘towards the north of the harbor’. Please, realize that this expression appears in other two places in the manuscript.

Lines 173-174: ‘from value 61 to 162 in the period from 2007 to 2017 (Figure 3 and 4)’. Are you referring to a cross-shore transect ID or a distance in meters? Figure 3 doesn’t show any transect ID named 162, the highest ID transect is 105. Figure 4 has X axis entitled as ‘Cross-shore distance (m)’ but it seems to be a mistake because the numbers are not in increasing order and some of them appear repeated (e.g., 169 appears twice). Please, correct the sentence and X axis in Figure 4.

Lines 199-200: It is recommended to add information about the volumes of dredging/dumping and nourishment operations.  

 

DISCUSSION

Lines 223-224: ‘The offshore wave climate has suffered changes in the last decade (2007-2017) after the tsunami disaster in 2004’. It is recommended to include more information about the changes in the wave climate. Have been detected changes in the wave height? Have been registered changes in the most frequent wave direction? Have been detected more energetic events?

Lines 227-228: It is recommended to add information about the area of coastal vegetation removed.

Lines 244-251: This information is also about coastal vegetation in the area and thus, it had to be mentioned when coastal vegetation issue is discussed by first time. Please, reorganize.

Line 250: It is suggested to replace ‘heavy sediment materials’ by ‘coarse sediment material’.

 

TABLES

Table 1: Google Earth Image. It’s necessary to indicate the sensor of the Google Earth Image.

 

FIGURES

Figure 1: In the map appears written ‘Addalaichchenai’ whereas in figure caption appears as ‘Addalaichenai’. Please, check what the correct name is.

Figure 2: These images aren’t maps because the following elements are missing: X and Y coordinates, north arrow and bar scale. Please, add these elements to create the requested maps. Images can be opened in ArcGIS and then, map can be created.

Figure 8: These images aren’t maps because the following elements are missing: X and Y coordinates, north arrow and bar scale. Please, add these elements to create the requested maps. Images can be opened in ArcGIS and then, map can be created.

 

Author Response

See the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors addressed almost all my comments.

In particular,  integrations and more details were added to the Introduction and Materials and Methods sections, and the new section Geographic and Geologic Framework was added. The previous Results and Discussion section was separated into two sections. Some figures were ameliorated and the captions improved, the new Table 1 was added. Other useful references were cited in the main sections.

After these changes, the manuscript improved.

TEXT

L118: "Sea", what sea? Specify - for not local readers - that this is the Indian Ocean, and add this toponym at least in Figure 1 (!).

FIGURES

Figure 1: See comment above: add "Indian Ocean" to the map (choose one of the two figures).

Figure 2: has no geographic coordinates along the frame (labeling), but the system is specified in its caption. I believe it is possible to add them as they are both in figures 3 and 6.

Figure 5: Add the view of each picture, e.g. "N-S view", and their location with the letters (a, b) in Figure 3. Specify in the captions of figures 5 and 3 that "The location of pictures is in Figure 3" and "a and b refer to the pictures of Figure 5", respectively. This will help readers to better know the study area.

Figure 8: Even if some authors are - presumably - geographers, as their affiliations indicate, they stated that were unable to add the geographic coordinates to Figure 8, produced with Google Earth Pro (GEP). This, for me, is surprising, as some figures are drawn through a GIS. Moreover, GEP - which is an online GIS - has a specific, simple, and automatic function (Grid) for that, and it is also possible to save an image with the title, legend, North, and scale. See the attached file produced through GEP, with geographic coordinates in decimal degrees of WGS84 system, of a recent satellite image. If instead, you want to add a UTM coordinates grid (function absent in GEP), you could add two markers (placeholders) at the opposite vertices of the figure (e.g., top right and bottom left), then write their coordinates (read from Property of placeholder) on it. It is not difficult. The GEP files can be saved as .kml or .kmz, importable (with all their attributes) in any GIS. Know the geographic coordinates and their reference system is fundamental for any reader to localize the study area on a map, GIS or GEP.

TABLE

Table 1: there are many repetitions in this new table, which should be simplified. Rows (R) 2-3, Column (C) 2: "Landsat 5 TM" delete one of the two and center it; R2-4 and R5, C3-4: "30  WGS 84 UTM Zone 44 N" delete three of four and center the remaining one; R2-4, C5: "30 to 90 [19]" delete two of three and center it. R6, C2: "Google Earth Image" is it Google Earth Pro (GEP)? If yes, change it. R6, C4: "Google Web Mercator" is UTM WGS84, the kilometric geographic coordinates in the reference system adopted by GEP.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.jpg

Author Response

See the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf